The paper is of clear interest for mHealth Africa since several SMS-based applications have been presented in our posts “10 best tools to boost mHealth initiatives in Africa” Part 1 & Part 2.

Here are some of the points revealed in the paper written by Carole Déglise, L. Suzanne Suggs and Peter Odermatt.

Objective of the paper

The aim of this review was to describe the characteristics and outcomes of SMS interventions for disease prevention in developing countries and provide recommendations for future work.

The study is based on a systematic search of peer-reviewed and gray literature in English, French, and German before May 2011 that describe SMS applications for disease prevention in developing countries.

Applications for surveillance, disease management, or compliance with a treatment were excluded from the study.

Description of SMS-based applications

A total of 34 SMS applications were described.

The majority of SMS applications were pilot projects in various levels of sophistication. They were classified into 4 modes of intervention:

One-way communication

Two way communication

With or without incentives (some projects generated participation with a rewards system)

With educative games

In term of medical application, the paper revealed that HIV is the most covered disease while Malaria rank 3rd:

Disease Focus

Number of applications

% of Sample

HIV

18

47%

Sexual & reproductive health

5

13%

Malaria

4

11%

Diarrhea

2

5%

Others

9

24%

Although projects extended across regions, SMS initiatives were concentrated in South Africa, Kenya, and India:

Assessment of applications

Among the 34 application studied only 5 had findings of an evaluation reported: